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Friday, 18 March 2011

Stop the War Coalition statement on UN and Libya

DAVID CAMERON ITCHING TO BOMB LIBYA

'David Cameron has been itching to bomb Libya and the United Nations resolution sanctioning air strikes will give him the chance to do so. The lessons of two disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been learned. The price paid in hundreds of thousands of lives and two devastatedcountries will now be extended to the people of Libya.

Air attacks on Libya will not help end the civil war but will escalate it andcould be the prelude to a much wider war. They will not help bring the downfallof Gaddafi. He is already portaying the United Nations' decision as an act ofWestern colonisation and himself as the defender of Libyan sovereignty. Airstrikes by the US and Britain will strengthen, not weaken, his position. The Stop the War Coalition is opposed to any military intervention in theLibyan civil war. History shows us that the consequences of Westernintervention are almost always disastrous and not in the interests of those itclaims to support.

The struggle for democratic and national freedom in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Yemen must be determined by the people of those countriesalone, and certainly not by the United States, Britain and their allies, whohave for decades supported the dictatorial regimes the popular uprisings seek to overthrow.'

I'll just add that in Tyneside we've called an emergency demo at Grey's Monument, Newcastle, in response to air strikes. If they start before Saturday morning the protest will be at 1pm on Saturday; any later and it will be 5pm on the day following the start of military action. Organised by Tyneside Stop the War Coalition.